


Wherefore Cometh Light

by Calchexxis



Series: Flashbangs & Frag Grenades [1]
Category: League of Legends
Genre: Background Relationships, Established Relationship, F/F, Fluff, Jinx is crazy, Kinda Dark, Like Dark lite, Lux is Crazier, Romance, lightcannon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-17
Updated: 2021-03-17
Packaged: 2021-03-26 01:13:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30098007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Calchexxis/pseuds/Calchexxis
Summary: In the depths of a Demacian Prison Block, a psychotic fugitive has finally been apprehended, and Luxanna Crownguard is called upon by the Sheriff who helped in the arrest to fulfill her prerogative as a representative of Demacia to pass the prisoner on to the Wardens of Piltover, but neither prisoner nor representative are what they seem.
Relationships: Caitlyn/Vi (League of Legends), Luxanna "Lux" Crownguard/Jinx
Series: Flashbangs & Frag Grenades [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2216451
Comments: 12
Kudos: 50





	Wherefore Cometh Light

**Author's Note:**

> Hahahahaha I just discovered this ship like two hours ago and this happened. I regret _absolutely nothing_.

Two sets of footsteps echo in the dimly lit halls of Prison Block Four.

The name was subdued and simple and did nothing to suggest its true purpose, which was the intent of the ones who named it. Demacians were never one for overtly advertising where they kept their worst and most ruthless, so when the time came to name the supermax block where the most dangerous criminals apprehended on Demacian soil would be kept, the collective decision was: Prison Block Four.

“Thank you for coming on short notice.” The voice had a clipped and clearly enunciated accent of a woman born to power and privilege.

She gave up the privilege when she became a Champion—all are equal on the Rift—but she hadn’t given up her power. Power like hers lay in her mind, and no one could take that away.

“It’s sort of my job,” her companion replied brightly.

The voice was sunshine over clean green fields. It was blue skies in spring and flowers in summer. But there was an edge to it that Caitlyn had long since learned to listen for; a careful, quiet, incisive timbre that belied the gentle exterior of the voice’s owner.

“Still,” Caitlyn said as they stopped at the sixth security checkpoint and began passing over their belongings to be checked and double-checked by the Demacian wardens, “I appreciate it, all the same. It’s the middle of the night. Legally, you could have put it off til morning.”

Luxanna ‘Lux’ Crownguard, smiled. She was often smiling, to the point that she was known for it, and Lux wore the smile well. Of all of the people Caitlyn had worked with while on operations in Demacia, she liked working with Lux the best. The young woman had a constant, infectious optimism and generous attitude that, combined with her brilliant, tactical mind, created something that Caitlyn might generously term: a hero.

Kind, powerful, brilliant, determined… all qualities that Caitlyn deeply admired in the young woman. One of the best things about working in this staid realm was seeing Lux, and wondering just what she might go on to do in the future.

“Thank you!” Lux said with a wide, natural smile to the Warden as he passed back her personal effects, which were really just her staff and a file folder, and the stolid older fellow actually cracked a small smile.

“I don’t know how you do that all day,” Caitlyn said as Lux joined her down the next hallway. “Smiling, I mean.”

“Everybody deserves a smile,” Lux replied, her expression softening as she spoke. “You never know what kind of day someone’s had, maybe a smile makes it all worthwhile.”

If it had been anyone else, Caitlyn would have rolled her eyes. The fact that Lux was being completely earnest stole a lot of the bluster from the older woman’s normally arid and stoic demeanor, though.

“Well, you’ll need all the smiles you can get for this one,” Caitlyn said, her voice darkening. “I just… I can’t believe we actually caught her.”

Lux hummed in acknowledgment. “I agree, given the suspect’s dossier, I would have expected a demolition on the scale of a city-block at least, but you say she just gave up?”

Caitlyn winced at the cavalier way Lux spoke the potential collateral damage. It was something that she was painfully aware was in the wheelhouse of this particular criminal which was why the usual standing orders were Do Not Pursue, with the invisible explanation of that order being: ‘ _because it’s probably a trap_ ’.

“Well, not _just_ ,” Caitlyn said a touch defensively. “We had to chase her halfway across the city, and she blew up quite a lot of it before we finally pinned her down.”

“How’s Vi recovering, by the way?” Lux asked as they stepped inside the vestibule at the end of the featureless stone hall. “I heard she was admitted after the arrest.”

That actually made Caitlyn laugh, albeit quietly. “She’s fine… almost got her hand blown off opening a door she should have _known_ was trapped, but her gauntlet absorbed the lion’s share of it.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” Lux said gently. “I know how close you two are.”

A gentle flush crossed Caitlyn’s cheeks. She wasn’t going to deny it, though. The fact that the Sheriff of Piltover regularly—and vigorously—shared a bed with her partner was probably the worst-kept secret on the force, but Caitlyn trusted Vi like no one else, and Vi trusted Caitlyn just as firmly. Neither was the type to allow personal feelings to interfere with their mission, and that was part of why Caitlyn fell so hard for the irascible Enforcer.

“Honestly, I’m surprised Vi actually brought her in alive,” Lux admitted.

“To be honest, I am too,” Caitlyn admitted quietly. “But she surrendered, and Vi… she’s… she’s a good woman.”

“I know, but,” Lux sucked in a breath between her teeth, “I mean I wouldn’t have exactly _blamed her_.”

Caitlyn grimaced but didn’t argue. No one would have blamed Vi if the perp, in this case, had caught a lethal case of ‘Resisting Arrest’, but according to Vi, she had dropped her weapons, put her hands up, and said ‘I surrender’, and Caitlyn knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that Vi wouldn’t kill someone in cold blood like that.

That wasn’t who she was anymore.

“Part of it was the worry, you know,” Caitlyn said as Lux pulled the dossier she’d brought with her and began leafing through it.

“How do you mean?”

“It’s like she wanted to be caught… and when she just gave up, it was like she was teasing us,” Caitlyn said, old anger boiling up under her cultured tones. “I think part of the reason Vi didn’t end her there is because… because that’s what she wanted.”

“Probably was,” Lux said casually.

Caitlyn quirked an eyebrow at that and Lux gave her a small, queer little smile that put the strangest chill down Caitlyn’s spine. It wasn’t one of the smiles she was used to seeing on Lux’s face, but for the life of her, she couldn’t say why it felt so unsettling.

“I can’t imagine why she would want that,” Caitlyn said, trying to put the image of that odd smile out of her mind. “She’s mad.”

“That’s my point, though,” Lux said, snapping the dossier shut. “She wanted to make a point, I think… at least, my theory is that she wanted to see if you would actually hold up to those ideals you’re always touting about law and order, or if you’d be just like her when push came to shove.”

“You really think she’d die to figure that out?” Caitlyn asked.

There was that shiver-inducing smile again. Why did it seem so strange? It wasn’t overly wide. Nothing like the prisoner’s smile. There was nothing overtly wrong with it, but it put an odd pit in Caitlyn’s stomach all the same. And then it was gone, and in its place was the usual small, incisive smile of the brilliant young mage Caitlyn had come to know from Lux's days as a Radiant Infiltrator operating in Piltover.

“I think so,” Lux said. “I don’t think living means as much as proving a point, for her.”

“That’s insane,” Caitlyn replied grimly.

“A bit,” Lux agreed. “But I like to think we all have something we’re willing to die for, and just because we don’t understand why someone else will die for their ‘something’ doesn’t make it not worth dying for in their mind.”

“I suppose so.” Caitlyn drummed her fingers on her arm thoughtfully, as Lux checked over her gear one more time before looking back up at the Sheriff with a broad grin.

“Well, time to get this over with, I guess.”

“How long do you need?” Caitlyn nodded at the door, and Lux scoffed, waving off the question.

“Fifteen minutes,” she said. “She was apprehended on Demacian soil, but she’s a Zaunite fugitive. I just need to go through the rigamarole, read off some documents to her, sign a few things saying I read said documents to her, and that’s it.”

“What if she asks for parole, or offers information?” Caitlyn asked, her eyes narrowing at the door, more than at Lux.

For Lux’s part, she just shook her head solemnly, the smile fading to something more serious as she crossed her arms coldly across her chest.

“Fourth-Block prisoners don’t get deals,” Lux replied. “Ever.”

That was a relief if Caitlyn were being fully honest. She wasn’t sure what to expect from Lux regarding this case since she’d never had to deal with Demacia’s draconian laws on this level of severity before, but the notion that there was a scale of criminal that Demacian law simply refused all forms of trust to made sense and, in this case, it was absolutely warranted.

“Alright, I’ll be right out here, just knock when you’re ready to leave,” Caitlyn said.

Lux nodded soberly, dusted her hands on her breeches, took up her staff, and turned to the door.

* * *

* * *

The metal door swung shut with a dull, atonal thud, and the moment it did the smile fell from Luxanna’s face; one of a thousand masks she wore every second of every day, as easily shed as a flake of dead skin. She wore so many masks these days, masks called ‘Daughter’ or ‘Sister’. Masks with titles like ‘Crownguard’ and ‘Champion’.

They all blurred together a little, honestly.

“Heya, Blondie.”

Her grin was bright, wide, and toothy, and Lux blew out a slow, frustrated breath as she planted her staff in the corner of the room. The gem at the tip flashes subtly, glinting in the low light of the five-by-five cell where the prisoner nicknamed ‘The Loose Cannon’ was chained to the wall by no less than five different cuffs.

“Hello, Jinx,” Lux said. “You’ve really stepped in it this time, haven’t you?”

“Aw, I dunno whatcha talkin’ about, Blondie!” Jinx crooned. “Look at me! I’m just fine!” She held her hands out wide, and the chains on her wrists and forearms rattled.

“Clearly,” Lux replied.

Crossing her arms across her chest, Lux shook her head as she paced back and forth in the small space, looking over the young woman. She was skin and bones, really; a hundred pounds wet of whipcord muscle packed with more crazy than an asylum, with long blue hair tied in a pair of ankle-length braids that were crusted with dirt and dust from the running fight she’d led the Wardens and Vi on for almost eight straight hours.

“Hey, don’t be ma~d.” Jinx leaned forward as far as her restraints would allow. “It was a lot of fun.”

“And that’s the only thing that matters to you in the end, isn’t it?” Lux asked tersely. “The _fun._ ”

For a moment, the madness drops away. The broad, too-wide grin, and the manic energy snaps out of existence like a void portal, leaving behind a calm expression that looks almost more alien on Jinx’s face than the demented smile.

“No,” she replied, staring unblinkingly at Lux. “Not the only thing.”

Lux shivered, then sighed and sagged.

“They’re going to do it this time, you know,” Lux said. “No life sentences, you’ve accrued something like forty of them, last I checked—” she held up the dossier and wiggled it in front of Jinx “—it’s an execution this time.”

And just like that, the manic look was back. The bright, snapping energy in her eyes like a firecracker going off in an abattoir lit up her expression mercilessly. To Lux, it was merciless, anyway. To Lux, who could see spectrums of light no one else could perceive, and control them, there was no one brighter and more uncontrollable than Jinx.

“Oh yeah, no joke, I don’t even blame’em,” Jinx said with a cackle. “I mean, did you see the stuff I took out this time around? Plus there was that thing in Ionia? That sacred tree thing? And then the statue of bird-boy over in Noxus! Wow! That one was a real zinger! I did _not_ expect them to get _that_ mad.”

The light from Lux’s staff glinted and flashed, and Lux couldn’t resist a small laugh. That last one had actually been kind of funny. Her brother _almost_ cracked a smile when he heard about it, and that’s the equivalent of anyone else busting a rib laughing.

But the laughter died quickly, and with it went what little of Lux’s good humor it had served to revive.

“What do you expect me to do?” Lux asked quietly. “Do you think I’m going to get you out of this one? Like the other times?”

Jinx shrugged. “I dunno, will you?”

Lux groaned and dragged her hand over her face. It was _always_ like this. Every single time. Jinx never gave a straight answer. Not really. And when she did it never really meant what you thought it meant at the time. Maybe that was Lux’s fault for trying to ascribe sanity to a madwoman, but it didn’t make it any less infuriating!

“Tell you what, Blondie, let’s make a deal,” Jinx said, and Lux stiffened.

There it was again, that cool, cold sanity. Was it strange that sanity was a part of Jinx’s madness? The way her calm could just come and go at will, or at a moment’s notice? Did Jinx even control it? Even now, after this long, Lux had no idea.

“You came in here thinkin’ you were gonna bust me out, right?” Jinx continued. “That’s why ya got that thing—” she nodded to the staff “—bending light and sound, and making sure anyone else who’s listening or looking at us will only hear’n see ya reading me my rights or something else equally _boring._ ”

“I—!”

Lux’s jaw dropped. Her magic had been so subtle that even the grandmaster of the Radiant Ones would have struggled to notice it. Just a gentle twist of the atmospheric pressure here and there, modulating the passage of light, twisting it, and altering the tone and echo of sound. Nothing overt. Barely even a flicker of magic.

Jinx had no magic at all and yet…

“C’mon, Blondie,” Jinx said with a flicker of that madcap grin, “I know you too well.”

“It would be suicide,” Lux said. “We’re in the middle of the most secure block in Demacia.”

“But you still think I can do it,” Jinx said. “Don’t you?”

Damn her.

_Damn her._

The answer was yes. The answer would always be yes. Lux did think she could do it because, in her mind, there was nothing Jinx couldn’t do. Jinx was impossible and incalculable. She was like a wavelength that couldn’t be measured, or a spectrum that no one could see. She was an aural void and a deafening thunderclap in an enclosed space all at the same time.

“I do,” Lux whispered.

“Natch.” Jinx smirked, and against all logic, Lux smiled back. “So here’s the deal, Blondie. You put your back to me, you walk outta that door, and you don’t look back, and I’ll stay right here! No tricks. No escape attempts. Nothin’! They could uncuff me and walk me down to Zaun, and I’d walk right back into town with’em.”

Lux blinked in shock, then startled as Jinx lunged forward the full extent of her restraints, causing them to clatter loudly.

“And all ya gotta do is walk away.” Jinx’s grin split her face from ear to ear.

That was it? Just walk away? Lux worked her jaw soundlessly for a long moment before laughing weakly.

“You’d never just let them kill you.”

“The term’s ‘execution’, Sunshine,” Jinx remarked blithely. “And I’ve definitely earned me one of those, y’know? Or like, twelve… or eighty… I dunno, I lost count after twenty-three.”

“You’re lying,” Lux muttered.

At that, Jinx narrowed her eyes. The madness crept away again, leaving the cold void behind, but it also left the too-broad smile, and somehow that was worse. It tickled something inside of Lux’s chest, seeing that smile without the light.

“I’m a lotta things, Blondie.” Jinx’s voice was a deadly whisper. “Murderer. Arsonist. Vandal. _Serial Jaywalker_. But I’m _not_ a liar—

“—you—”

“—identity theft doesn’t count,” Jinx cut through. “I got legal papers’n everything.”

Lux sighed.

“So?” Jinx offered. “Deal’s a deal. Go ahead, walk away, and it’s all over. And I won’t breathe a _word_ of the times you let me off the hook,” she grinned as she made an ‘X’ with a finger’, “cross my heart and hope ta… well, y’know.”

Gritting her teeth, Lux turned around, putting her back to JInx. Three steps, at most. Three steps to the door, knock, and Caitlyn opens it, and another couple of steps and she would be through, and that door would close forever. It would all be over. 

Every insane night. Every day spent wondering if she’d really lost it. 

It would all be over.

One step, and Jinx started laughing. Not loudly, not like her mad cackle. It was a low, quaking chuckle that started somewhere in her narrow chest.

Two steps, she kept laughing. Sweat trickled down Lux’s brow, slipping down her neck and across her shoulders, and down her spine.

Damn it.

“Damn it.” Lux echoed her thoughts as she pressed her palm to her face, and started to laugh along with Jinx.

This was why Jinx had let herself get caught. She hadn’t cared about proving a point to Caitlyn or Vi. She’d already known what they were going to do. She wanted to prove a point to Lux, and maybe to herself. Jinx wanted to prove that if Lux were given the choice between getting to walk away with a clean slate and never suffering a single consequence from her actions, and Jinx, that Lux would choose—

She turned on her heel with a snap and lunged at Jinx, dropping to her knees as she captured the slender young woman in her arms and pulled her forward. Their lips met in a graceless crash of tongue and teeth, and Lux let out a soft, relieved sob as she breathed in that blood-quickening smell of gunpowder and crude oil that always hung around Jinx.

Lux kissed Jinx like she wouldn’t be able to breathe otherwise, and Jinx let her. She hung in her restraints, grinning with unhinged glee against Lux’s mouth until finally, the Demacian mage pulled away, panting and flushed.

“Mwah!” Jinx made an exaggerated pop with her lips as they parted, and fixed Lux with a burning expression that was wholly different from all the others she’d worn that night. “ _That’s my girl._ ”

“You can really do it?” Lux asked.

“Pffffft! Of course I can!” Jinx crowed. “I picked out like, four different escape routes on my way in here!”

“I thought they had you sedated,” Lux said, raising an eyebrow.

Jinx cackled again. “What? With that dosage? Puh-lease. That was barely enough to get me all loosey-goosey.”

Of course it was. Lux wasn’t sure why she expected anything different. Of course Jinx would be able to break out of the most secure Prison Block in the most secure realm on Runeterra. Why wouldn’t she? She’s _Jinx._

Jinx could do anything.

Lux raised a hand and tightened it into a fist, and a brief flash of light captured between her fingers flared. When she opened her hand, there was a faint glimmer rest in her palm, like an oddly shaped pin made of bent light.

“It’s a hard light skeleton key,” Lux said. “It will mold to any lock, but it’ll only last about an hour.”

“Like they’d even wait an hour to move me once you got done,” Jinx huffed.

She leaned in, biting the little pin and slipping it inside of her mouth before giving Lux another wide grin. 

“Thanks, Blondie, you’re the best girl a girl could ask for.”

As she stood, Lux let her fingers trail along the soft lines of Jinx’s wonderful, heart-shaped face. Everything about her broke Lux’s heart as much as it made it swell to bursting; those full, cupid's-bow lips, her wide, expressive eyes the color of springberries, and her cute button nose. Everything about Jinx was beautiful, and Lux could have stared at her all night long.

Some nights, she did.

Now, though, she only had a minute and fifty-eight seconds left, so she brushed her thumb over Jinx’s lips—which parted enough for Jinx to lick the digit cheekily—then smiled at her, and said:

“Try not to kill too many of them on your way out, okay?”

“No promises,” Jinx answered.

Lux rolled her eyes, but to be fair, she hadn’t expected anything else, but it wasn’t a no, and that was the best she was going to get.

“Hey, Blondie, did I ever tell ya what my favorite thing about you is?” Jinx said suddenly as Lux began turning around.

“N-No,” she replied, hesitantly.

“My favorite thing is that you,” she nodded to Lux, “are the only one in the world who’s crazier than I am.”

Never had Lux been so relieved that she had cast her sound-masking spell before, because suddenly it was all she could do to keep herself upright as she laughed. 

It was bright. A bright, sunny laugh; and Jinx was laughing with her.

“Alright, see you at home, okay?” Jinx said. “Still on for date night tomorrow. yeah?”

“Of course,” Lux said with another laugh.

“Awesome! Love you!”

Lux brushed a strand of bright blond hair from her eyes as she smiled fondly back into the cell at the madness that lurked in that bright, bright light.

“I love you, too.”


End file.
